


In Another Dimension You're Okay, But You're in Mine

by collarsandplaid



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Cellular Disintegration, Everyone Adopts Peter, Found Family, Gen, Miles is the Perfect Son Figure, Peter Gets Stuck in the Wrong Dimension, This aint gonna be happy folks, Transdimensional Communication, Whump, major character death pending, the ending can really go two different ways here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 03:38:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17358221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collarsandplaid/pseuds/collarsandplaid
Summary: "You didn't have a choice."But that was the thing. He had many choices. But most of them ended up with Peter dead or left in Miles’ dimension to die. And very few resulted in him completing his three vital tasks together: send Peter home, subdue Kingpin, save New York.He wondered mildly if, in some another dimension, there was some other Miles Morales who had made the right choice. Clearly, it was not this one.(Will add tags as they become relevant)





	In Another Dimension You're Okay, But You're in Mine

**Author's Note:**

> You don't understand: angst and whump are as vital to me as garlic bread.
> 
> After watching the film (several times), I immediately thought up a situation to explore what would happen if Peter B. Parker became trapped in Miles' universe and Doc Ock's prediction started to come true.   
> My brainstorm notes as to how I ended up with _this_ situation are in the End Notes, if you're curious, or would like your own fodder for an emotional fic of pain.
> 
> Just a warning, but I am currently undecided on whether to give this fic a happy ending or not. It really can go either way at this point.

Peni Parker left with her spider and her thanks.

Peter Benjamin Parker left with a Rubik’s cube and his love.

Peter Porker left with an (illegal?) farewell and a single tear.

Gwen Stacy left with the promise of friendship and a smile.

Miles Morales, the newest of the spiders with only two days experience, watched each alternate dimension version of Spiderman disappear into the swirling, flashing colors and vibrant, multiplying bubbles. He smiled fondly at each departure, glad to see the spiders safely home but saddened by their separation. He hadn’t known the other spiders long but the mutual connections shared upon first meeting them had instantaneously bound them closer than family. He was going to miss them.

The last of the Spider-gang dropped down into Miles’ field of vision, stopping just in front of the boy.

“You’re turn,” Miles declared with the same warm smile, expression mixing with gratitude for the eldest spider and with sorrow for having to say goodbye to the man that had been a direct cause of Miles’ progress as much as the older spider had progressed alongside him.

“Yeah… yeah,” Peter B. Parker sighed. He pushed up his mask but refused to meet Miles’ eyes. “Right.”

Miles didn’t have time to wonder about Peter’s hesitation nor did Peter have time to voice aloud his conflicting inner monologue.

They sensed the threat at exactly the same time.

The two spiders turned to look to see the gargantuan business man and criminal boss glaring at them from across the deceptively growing room, hands closed into fists.

“You’re not going anywhere!” Wilson Fisk boomed in an enraged voice. He started towards the two, punching and kicking debris out of his way. “You’ve ruined everything for the last time, Spiderman!”

Miles and Peter tugged their masks down but before either of them could react, Kingpin looked down into the eye of the whirling colorful storm that had exploded around them. Black bubbles were increasing in the center of the collider and reaching out to consume the color and fragments of other dimensions.

He looked back to the spiders, and gave them a malicious grin that sent shivers running down Miles’ spine. Peter tensed beside him.

“You want this universe so bad, you can have it,” Kingpin snarled. “I’ll just take yours.” And then he jumped.

“No!” Peter cried out and lunged at the giant of a man.

“Peter, wait!” Miles yelled after him, his grasping hand closing over empty air. Peter was already spiraling down after Kingpin. Miles kicked away from the wall, flipped head over heels, and dived down after them.

Peter caught up to Kingpin first. He thwiped out a shot of web and used his momentum to ram right into Fisk, sending both men flying away from the beam.

“Stay the hell away from my universe!” Peter spat with another web shot that sent him sailing back towards Fisk to land a hard kick into the larger man’s stomach.

Kingpin flew into a rising skyscraper, glass and metalwork splintering outward in a cascade of glittering, multicolored shrapnel.

Peter moved to charge in again but Miles caught his wrist in one hand and hauled them up to the top of the building with the other. They landed deftly with calculated rolls on the roof, feet and fingers sticking to the smooth cement as the building tilted and started to curve.

“What are you doing?!” Peter shouted at him, pulling off his mask to shoot the boy a warning glare. “I have to stop Kingpin. And you need to shut this thing down so he doesn’t break into my universe.”

“You have to go home!” Miles countered, trying to keep his voice above the intense volume of sputtering bubbles and moving structures. “I’ll stop Kingpin and make sure he doesn’t get to your dimension.”

“If he kills you, then there won’t be a Spiderman here to stop him.”

“If you stay here, you’ll die.”

“At least the multiverse will be safe.”

“I can’t let Spiderman die!” Miles nearly screamed, blinking against the heat pooling behind his eyes. “I told you, I can’t do that again. Don’t ask me to do that again.”

“I’m not asking.”

Peter’s voice was cold, detached, as if he had already accepted his fate. His eyes, when he finally met Miles’ imploring gaze, were tired, so tired, with a sadness deeper than Miles could fathom. They were the eyes of a man who had given up – not on the world he was trying to save or the people in it, but on himself.

“It’s okay.”

Before Miles could – what? protest, argue, plea, even he didn’t know – a meaty fist punched clean through the roof and grabbed Miles.

Kingpin squeezed and Miles screamed.

Peter lunged forward and kicked at the exposed elbow. He was rewarded with a sickening crack that allowed Miles to wriggle out of the weakened grasp. There was the bellow of a wounded beast and then the second hand crashed up and gripped Peter’s throat. The older spider only had time to push Miles away before he disappeared beneath the shattered roof. A moment later, the building shuddered and the two men burst out from the windows several stories down.

“Peter!” Miles called out and started running along the building to get to him.

“Push the button!” Peter’s strained voice flittered up to him. Miles kept running.

One well-shot web caught Miles both by surprise, and by the hand. His hand flew back and stuck to a careening taxi cab that sent him speeding away from his friend and towards the free-floating green button.

“Please!”

“Peter!”

But Peter couldn’t hear the boy anymore. Fisk was pummeling him with rapid punches to the face, the torso, the stomach; any exposed part of Spiderman he could hit. Peter did his best to block and throw in some of his own practiced jabs, but it was getting harder to focus with each new strike of knuckles against his body.

The two sank down lower and lower, further away from the bubbling colors and deeper down into the suffocating black.

“-done with you,” Kingpin continued, leaving Peter idly wondering how long the crime boss had been talking, “I’m going to invite myself over to your dimension for a visit.”

“Won’t… work,” Peter gasped, arms up to block another hit. Fisk grabbed him with both hands, one trapping his arms, the other catching his head in an unyielding grip. “They’re… gone.”

The Vanessa and Richard Fisk of Peter B. Parker’s dimension had similarly met an untimely demise years ago, just as they had in this dimension. This Wilson Fisk would gain nothing by invading his dimension. Not to mention, he wouldn’t last long in another dimension anyway, as Peter’s body was constantly reminding him. The only thing that awaited Kingpin in Peter’s dimension would be a lonely, painful death.

The same thought process seemed to flicker across Kingpin’s face as the two fell: Peter’s actions slowed by fatigue; Fisk’s fueled by anger.

“Then I’ll destroy everything you have.”

Peter’s blood turned to ice and his eyes widened in shock, foil to Kingpin’s growing grin, a smile full of teeth; a dangerous monstrosity that had targeted Peter’s home.

Kingpin raised a closed fist. “Don’t worry, I’ll give my condolences to Mary Jane.”

And then the broken floor rushed up to meet them and Peter’s skull cracked against the ground, Kingpin’s fist and body landing heavily on top of him, and he knew no more.

Kingpin stood, breathing hard, body hovering over the crushed spider. He looked up, barely able to see the dancing color through the thick black. All he had to do was make his way up back to the beam, enter the alternate dimension, and wreck as much havoc as he could in a world that had lost its protector.

Spiderman had ruined his chance of getting his family back. Fisk was going to return the favor.

A weak groan sounded near Kingpin’s feet. So the spider wasn’t dead yet. Well, he could take care of that. Kingpin lifted two fists high above his head, ready to bring them down in one fatal blow. He had killed one Spiderman this way. Why fix what wasn’t broke?

“Kingpin!”

He paused, hands still in the air, squinting up into the black. Did he just see a flash of red or were his eyes playing tricks?

A tiny fist collided with great force against his jaw. Kingpin jerked back, hands lowered now in defense but still the swift blows struck him, forcing him back. He couldn’t see his assailant. This new Spiderman had the advantage with his dark suit melting into the surrounding black and with the strange ability to turn himself completely invisible.

Kingpin swatted blindly at the air and the young spider jumped back and landed between the criminal and the fallen spider.

“That’s enough,” the little spider declared defiantly. “I’m putting a stop to this. Now!”

Kingpin chuckled, wiping a hand across his nose and mouth, smearing the blood there. “I’m two-to-zero with killing you Spiders.” He flexed his hands and rolled his shoulders, stabbing Miles with a glare that would have undoubtedly sent a weaker man falling to his knees. “What’s one more.”

He charged.

The battle was an adrenaline-fueled blur to Miles. There was no time to devise a plan of attack, only for instinct and reflex to keep him alive.

Miles and Kingpin fought, exchanging jabs and kicks. Miles did his best to dip and dodge, using his web to angle him away and then swing him in close but Kingpin had an uncanny speed and strength on his side.

The fight took the two up, jumping from broken, levitating bits of earth and debris. And all around them, the inky darkness grew and expanded, until most of the color had been extinguished.

“You can’t stop me!” Kingpin growled, grabbing hold of Miles’ fist when the boy was too slow to retreat. He lifted Miles and threw him bodily down. “I’m going to destroy all your universes.”

Miles scissor-kicked his way back onto his feet and jumped high, aiming a kick at Kingpin’s head. The larger man, as if anticipating the attack, caught Miles in midair and punched him back down. Miles stood again, albeit slower and with more pain evident in his stance.

“I promised Spiderman I’d start in his dimension with Mary Jane.”

Miles turned invisible and  trained another punch at Kingpin, but the crime boss felt the hand Miles used as leverage against his chest and struck down the smaller spider. Miles got up again.

“But since I’m here, I’ll destroy your family first. Then I’ll know who to kill in the next dimension.”

Miles leveled another punch, then a kick, but Kingpin stopped both, punching Miles down. The boy managed to get his hands under him but couldn’t push himself back up in time.

“I’ll make sure you never see your family again,” Kingpin seethed.

He brought both fists down and Miles felt the force of the blow throughout his body as he physically sank into the cracked earth beneath him.

Kingpin loomed over him, just as he had over Peter Parker; over Peter B. Parker. Another spider gone and out of his way.

All Miles could see was black. All he could hear was black, or what he assumed black sounded like. His body was numb and his head was pounding as fast as his stuttering heart. Everything hurt. His limbs refused to respond; refused to move and he wasn't sure if he would be able to get back up this time. 

But then he could hear something else. It sounded far away and muffled, as if he were underwater and there were a multitude of voices above him all speaking at once. He blearily blinked open his eyes but only saw more black. Still, it helped to raise his head above the water and hear the voices more clearly.

They came to him like the echoes of memories, like when he made his leap of faith off the Brooklyn skyscraper.

_Get up._

_Come on, Miles._

_Don’t give up._

_You have to get up, Miles._

_Spiderman always gets back up._

Peni, Ham, Noir, Gwen, the Peter that was his Peter, the Peter that wasn’t his Peter but was _his_ Peter, his mother, his uncle, his father – he could hear all of them, resounding in his head, cheering him on.

Somehow, he found the strength to stand. Somehow he managed to stay upright despite the screaming protest of his body. Somehow he was able to face Kingpin.

“My family is always with me.”

Kingpin was staring at him now in disbelief.

“Ever hear of the shoulder touch?”

Miles touched Kingpin’s shoulder, just like his Uncle Aaron had taught him, and suddenly Fisk was surging upwards encased in crippling blue lightning. Miles snagged the retreating body with his web and swung Kingpin up, like a crackling balloon, and threw him at the floating, blinking button.

“Hit that green button for me, will ya?”

Kingpin collided against the panel in a flash of blue-white sparks and the collider finally turned off. The black disappeared immediately as all the lights in the collider turned on, revealing the actual interior of the room.

Miles immediately looked wildly about for the familiar blue and red suit of his friend. There!

All at once, the anomalies and fragments of alternate dimensions shuddered and groaned as a great magnetic force pulled everything pack into the center of the beam. As everything was getting sucked back through the collider, Miles raced for Peter.

“Time to go,” Miles panted as his fluidly knelt down, pulled Peter’s arm across his shoulders, and stood, effortlessly carrying the older spider’s weight.

With a running start, and mindful of Peter’s dragging feet, he fired a shot of web and swung them both up to a cluster of intact panels along the wall of the collider.

“Hang on, Peter,” Miles ground out as he clung to the wall and to Peter. The older spider groaned and trembled but Miles allowed himself a moment of relief when Peter shakily reached out to attach himself to the wall.

As debris, vehicles, buildings, and bits of collider were swept into the beam, Miles looked back and widened his eyes in awe as he witnessed the layered, colorful webbing waiting just on the other side of the beam. It was beautiful and terrifying and he wondered which web led to his friends and how many other dimensions there actually were.

His musing was cut short when he felt the force that was sucking in everything around him, start to pull him in too.

He focused on sticking (keep sticking, Miles!) but the force of the pull was proving too strong.

His feet detached first, and then his fingertips let go a second later.

Peter snapped a hand out and latched onto his wrist. “Hang on, bud, I got you!”

His voice proved to be stronger than his grasp, however, because just as Miles clamped his hand down over Peter’s, the older man lost his grip and both spiders were dragged towards the beam.

As one, the spiders launched out a strand of web and hung on. Peter maneuvered his body to wrap protectively around Miles and the two were left swaying like a kite in a storm. Miles kept his eyes firmly shut, aware only of the howling wind and Peter’s presence: solid and safe.

At last there was a final “clunk” and then the pulling force was replaced with a cacophony of fire and explosions. The spiders could only hang on, Peter shielding Miles from the worst of the blast, as the collider erupted around them.

Finally, at last, the explosions died down and the spiders were left in a world, no longer filled with color or encumbered with blackness, but simmering in an ashy gray.

Miles slowly released the tension from his body and allowed his muscles to loosen and relax. He blinked open his eyes against the ash and dust to find the collider completely destroyed, just as he had promised his Peter and all the other Spider-people it would be.

The only problem…

“Let’s move, kid” Peter B. Parker said, voice coarse, as he released his hold on Miles. He took in a raspy breath and wheezed through a few stifled coughs. “We need to be gone before the police get here.”

With a grunt, Peter started pulling himself up along his web towards the new skylight in the ceiling, slowly and with pain in every movement. But he kept moving.

Miles, contrarily, stayed suspended where he was a moment longer, watching his mentor, his friend, his _family_ , go. He couldn’t name the mix of emotions that made his chest hurt, his throat tight, his vision blurry, and his stomach clench, but he knew their cause.

_What have I done?_

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, thanks for coming to my seminar. 
> 
> So, I thought a lot about how this fic should go. I know I wanted Peter to get left behind in Miles' dimension but it was the "how" that I wrestled with.
> 
> I didn't want to take Miles' growth away from him by having Peter save him, fight Kingpin in his place, or destroy the collider himself to ensure Miles wouldn't have to face Kingpin alone.  
> But I also didn't want Peter to just give up. I wanted him to at least consider his fears - which will be addressed more in a later chapter - and still have Miles fight to get him home. So I had to take away his choice to go or stay by taking him out of the fight, ultimately forcing Miles to decide whether to save his friend and risk losing his life and city, or save both friend (if only for the moment) and city, and then deal with the aftermath of keeping Peter. His reasoning and full understanding of the effects of his decision will also be later addressed.
> 
> I also struggled with the presence of Jefferson Davis. Originally, I was going to include him as the movie had and have Miles and Peter seek refuge in the same room as Davis during the collider's explosion, but the fic started to lose focus and break flow, so I just removed Davis from the scene. Don't worry! He's going to be present and punctual in the next chapter. I adore Miles' relationship with his family so they're definitely part of the narrative.
> 
> Thank you for your time.


End file.
